Pia Toscano was never a frontrunner, says 'Idol' EP Nigel Lythgoe

The American Idol judges may have been shocked that Pia Toscano was sent home last week, but Idol EP Nigel Lythgoe wasn’t. “I know the [voting] results, so I know she was never a frontrunner,” Lythgoe revealed in an on-camera interview with Yahoo! Music‘s Reality Rocks at Friday’s Vegas callback auditions for another of his shows, So You Think You Can Dance. He admitted he was upset about the results, but added, “The fact of the matter is that it appears that Pia didn’t connect with the audience as much as we maybe think she did. And she wasn’t voted through.” Watch the interview below.

Rather than make this about how we each felt about Pia (I’m with Ken Tucker), let’s debate something else Nigel revealed: He said he could see Idol considering changing the voting format next season to something akin to SYTYCD, meaning America would determine the bottom three but the judges would decide who leaves the show. That would ultimately be a call for Simon Fuller, Lythgoe said. But what do you think? Part of me thinks it would be good to make the judges actually work, but the majority of me thinks America won’t appreciate having their power stripped. Nor will it trust that this panel, which has been criticized for its lack of criticism, would get it right.